The growing season has begun, which means that CSA members throughout the country are getting shares packed with early crops, like lettuce, radishes, and baby spinach. If you're like many of us, you might feel somewhat ambivalent about the bounty of Boston, romaine, and red-leaf heads making their way into your box this month. On the one hand, it's such a treat to have fresh-from-the-farm salad greens on hand to toss with olive oil and lemon juice at a moment's notice. On the other hand...lettuce is so annoying to wash. The only way to make sure none of it goes to waste? Surrender to the lettuce: make peace with the fact that you'll need to dedicate half an hour each week to your salad spinner. With leaves washed, dried, and bagged in the fridge, salads become the effortless summer meals they were meant to be.

Chef Tim Ryan of New York's Morso serves this salad with gorgonzola fritters, but we think that adding some crumbled cheese is easier and just as good. You can pickle the rhubarb several days before you prepare the rest of the dish, while the accompanying spiced walnuts can be roasted a day ahead.

It's January, which means late night egg-nog-and-sugar-cookie binges are out and nutrient-packed whole grain dishes are in. These bold, seasonal recipes will leave you feeling satisfied as well as virtuous.

Southern Indian Vegetable Curry [Jamie Oliver] Ignore the long list of ingredients and adapt this recipe according to what you have on hand. Don’t like okra? Sub in cauliflower. Need to use up some carrots? Throw them in. The curry leaves are optional but coconut milk is a must.

The seasonal parade of root vegetables begins with a CSA box filled with hardy, early winter offerings. Celery root, leeks, and potatoes are calling out to be made into soup, while the tiny leaves of red kale would be delicious rubbed with olive oil and served raw in a lemony salad.

Pumpkins have a bit of a typecasting problem. Though they loom large in America’s cultural consciousness each fall, their starring turns are limited to appearances as jack o’ lanterns on Halloween and in pumpkin pies on Thanksgiving. But pumpkins have so much more to offer: sliced and roasted, they’re a sweet foil for rich, savory dishes such as the Afghani dish kaddo bourani, which pairs caramelized pumpkin with spicy ground beef. When baked and mashed, pumpkin purée can be thrown into quick breads, pancakes, and desserts that in no way resemble pie, like the chocolate cake featured below. How to Choose and Store: Small pie or sugar pumpkins are best for cooking. One five-pound pumpkin will yield about 4 ½ cups of purée. Uncut, uncured pumpkins will keep for a couple of months in a cool, dry place. Cooked pumpkin will last about five days in the refrigerator or up to six months in the freezer. How to Cook:

The blogosphere’s sprawling universe of recipes is inspiring, diverse, and—let’s face it—a bit daunting. Our recipe roundup does all the heavy sifting to single out recent, mouthwatering recipes from our favorite blogs. All you have to do is click and cook!Glowing Halloween Punch [Chow]
Quinine in tonic water glows a fluorescent blue when exposed under black lights.
Croissant Bread Pudding [LAT]
Croissants replace bread in a savory twist on bread pudding from La Boulange in San Francisco.

Buttressed with a moderate hardiness that helps them thrive during a large chunk of the year, good old reliable beets can get lost amidst the bushels of showy summer veggies at market. But take one bite of this tangy and sweet beet salad from Larry LaValley and you’ll wonder why you everforgot about them. The dish is a great side to eat right now, but its rich and nutty vinaigrette, made with sherry, raisins, and cumin, gives it staying power into fall and early winter. Get the recipe here.